I built this Rolling Ball Sculpture for my local donut shop, Susie Q’s donuts. They moved into a new location last year – and since I go there to get a coffee and a donut at least once a week, I thought that I would make them an RBS that they could display on the wall. An exhibition piece, if you will. This one is 5ft wide X 3ft high X 12″ deep with four different tracks. The loop d’ loop has my max inversions – 9 – with a nice backspin exit that slows the ball down. The tall skinny spiral track is split up so that the first half of the spiral only goes down part way down the RBS. It then exits onto some flat track, and then into another spiral before heading back to the ball collecting plate.

Track three is inspired by a toy I made for my granddaughter, Ellie. I built her an enclosed track “figure 8” that she could play with, but not get the balls out. I used that idea to build the tall “S” element on the right. The final track starts off with a couple large dips in the track and then gets caught by the ball collecting tipping arm. Those balls roll back and forth through many feet of track, into a regular tipping arm (with eyes!), a flat spiral and some “S” tracks before hitting the spinning arm and returning back to the lift.

All of the tracks get directed into the flat plate to merge back to the chain lift.